Blog: Too Rich To Jail, Too Evil To Fail: American
Social Policy in the 21st Century

By Dr. Eugene Stovall

December 18, 2013 Oakland, California

“So Congressman, what leverage will the Democrats have to extend
unemployment benefits and give the poor food stamps once you give the
Republican their budget bill?”

The news commentator interviewing the black Congressman
already knew that, according to the Huffington Post, Paul Ryan intended to hold
social programs hostage for a deal on raising the debt ceiling in January. "We’re going to meet in
our retreats after the holidays and discuss exactly what it is we’re going to
try to get for this," Ryan had said.

The Congressman bucked his eyes as he prepared to deliver the
trite, self-righteous pronouncements that are the stock and trade of black
elected officials. He didn’t have a clue about how to extend unemployment
benefits or restore the food stamp program over Republican objections. He was
just getting some air time and the news commentator was just going through a
charade.

“It will be up to the people to put pressure on Congress,”
the black representative intoned solemnly.
“They’ve got to come up here and demand changes.”

“Ah,” the news host smiled brightly. She was tempted to ask
the Congressman whether there might be ‘another March on Washington, or as the
insiders laughingly call it, another ‘shuffle
along the beltway’.

The same day, the networks___ major and cable ___ sizzled in
mock indignation over a court decision in Texas. A judge freed a white teenager
who, while drunk, had crashed into a parked car killing the car’s passengers, a
mother and daughter, as well as two motorists who had stopped to help them. The
killer’s defense attorney successfully argued that the teenager suffered from ‘affluenza’
a condition affecting someone like him who is so affluent and rich that he cannot
be held responsible for his actions. The Texas judge was merely applying the
legal precedent of being ‘too rich to jail’ that the Bush and Obama
administrations used when dealing with banks, brokerage firms and auto
companies. The Texas judge further enforced the Republican mantra, now being
echoed by some Democrats, that the government should benefit ‘the makers not the takers’.

Earlier in November the New York Magazine revealed an even
more chilling aspect of 21st century American values. In its issue
commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F.
Kennedy, the New York Magazine posted an article, entitled The Truly Paranoid Style in American Politics: From the JFK assassination to
weather control and the New World Order: 50 years of conspiracy theory. This article was intended to debunk conspiracy theories about
the Kennedy assassination by debunking all conspiracy theories. And so in this
article, the New York Times Magazine claimed that Gary Webb’s contra-cocaine
story was one of the greatest conspiracy theories of the 20th
century. It was the San Jose Mercury reporter, Gary Webb, who broke the
Iran-Contra story, revealing that the government was violating the Boland
Amendment which made it illegal for the CIA to be involved in the overthrow of
the Nicaraguan government. Webb revealed that, not only was the CIA continuing
to orchestrate the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government, but CIA operatives
were arming the Contras by selling cocaine to street gangs in Los Angeles. Yet,
despite all the facts to the contrary, the New York Times Magazine claimed that
Webb’s story was just another conspiracy theory. What is not a conspireacy
theory is that the government distribution of cocaine throughout the United
States caused the deaths and incarcerations of hundreds of thousands of black
people and the destructions of black neighborhoods across America. But when the
government-supplied cocaine found its way into white communities, the legal
system was able to impose much more lenient punishments on the white offenders
___ in many cases offering probation and fines ___ than the harsh prison
sentences imposed upon blacks. Of course, this travesty is of no concern to
members of the Congressional Black Caucus. They are very sympathetic to
America’s emerging social policy for the 21st century: ‘too rich
to jail and too evil to fail’.

For
more on the government’s policy of distributing cocaine in the black community,
read: Eugene Stovall’s Cassandra’s Curse: A Black Life In A Police State.